The Number One Subject to Study for Writing Success

Sorry – that’s a bit of a clickbait title, I know. But how often have you seen that kind of writing article? How often have writing reference books stated their stances in stark, all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway terms?

Cut out all prologues.

Burn all adverbs.

If you don’t plot, you’re a mess.

If you do plot, you’re a robot.

(Did I mention that the advice is often conflicting?)

I am a contrarian. Much of my writing career has been motivated by sheer spite. I’m not proud of this, but I know myself, and I know that if you tell me I can’t do something, I’m going to laugh and wave at you with my proof of accomplishment at some point. It’s just my nature.

I’ve been writing professionally for nearly twenty years now. In that time, I’d like to think that I’ve learned some things, about the industry, about writing, and about writers. In that time, there is one fact I believe, profoundly, when it comes to writing and publishing.

There is more than one way to do just about anything.

There are no absolutes. You can write a book by the seat of your pants, or you can plot it within an inch of your life. You can write strictly to genre expectations, or you can mash up a patchwork of them. I’ve read and enjoyed both traditional and self-published works. I’ve seen successful prologues and reveled in a frankly overexuberant use of “-ly” words. I’ve seen clichés and tropes made fresh and fun.

In my experience, most things are a spectrum. Publishing is not a binary science. We are encouraged to write three-dimensional nuanced characters. Why would we expect less than nuanced and three-dimensional challenges when it comes to how we write, and what we write? We’re simply characters in our own lives, after all. Simplistic answers rarely work for us.

Too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Having written writing reference books, I understand the temptation to oversimplify.

It’s very difficult to teach nuance. If writers are confused and in pain, the last thing they want to read is a treatise that says “well, it depends” over and over. They want answers. They want clear instructions. And they don’t have the experience or the perspective to make the kind of judgment calls that are necessary to determine which way to go.

So instead of saying, “Use adverbs sparingly, keeping in mind your genre, your audience, and the expectations attached to each,” you say “don’t use adverbs” because it’s easier to simply assume they’re not going to do it well… best to simply cut it out.

The problem there is, you have beginning writers who take this advice as gospel – often because some writing teachers present it as such. “This is the way it is! If you don’t do this, YOU WILL FAIL!”

To which I say: switch to decaf, oh sage ones.

The difference between medicine and poison is often in the dosage. Again, it’s not a “use/don’t use” binary. There’s a spectrum. It takes experimentation and education to get to the right point.

Besides, nobody’s going to die from an overabundance of adverbs. Likewise, nobody’s going to contract a terminal case of failure. I have said it a million times: it’s harder to kill your writing career than you think.

This applies to more than writing craft.

This mindset – right way, wrong way – seeps into more than simply writing technique. It spills out into how we do our work. Sometimes, it can bleed into how we identify ourselves.

“Should I write in the morning? Should I be writing two thousand words a day? If I don’t write every day, am I still a writer?”

It breaks my heart when I hear these questions. It’s fear that drives the questioner, the desperate thought that if they only get the ritual right, by some alchemical process involving getting up at four a.m. and producing a specific word count, they will avoid failure. If only they do everything right, then their path to writing success is assured.

The problem is, there is no guarantee. There is no magic combination of ritual and routine that will vault you onto the bestseller lists or produce the perfect novel.

That can be scary, especially if you’re frustrated and feel like you’re failing. It can be disheartening.

So what are you to do, if you want to be successful as a writer?

The number one thing to study is YOURSELF.

That sounds glib. It isn’t. I can’t tell you how many writers I’ve met in the past twenty years who are not aware of their processes, their voices, what motivates them, what their lives’ themes tend to be.

The key to finding the nuance, to discovering the point on the spectrum where you fall, is a detailed study of you.

How do you do this?

By keeping a writing journal, to start. Jot down when you write, how much you wrote. How you felt. This is how you figure out your patterns… when you write best, what your energy levels are.

Next, write a lot. You are going to “fail” – although, more specifically, you’re simply going to write badly – quite a bit. But it’s not wasted. I’d actually argue it’s a critical part of the process. It is often the only way to learn about your voice and what drives you. The only way to learn about a story itself is by getting in there and writing it.

Explore your style, your voice, your foibles, your rhythms. Investigate yourself more deeply than any character you’ve ever written. You’ve simply been living with yourself, going along for the ride. Dig deeper. You have a wealth of information that will directly inform your writing and how it is accomplished, just waiting for you to unearth it.

This doesn’t mean stop learning.

I’m not advocating turning your back on all writing instruction. (Again, with the extremist thinking! This isn’t a binary either!) Learning about yourself doesn’t mean ignoring everything else. But it does mean thinking critically, and applying judiciously. Keep seeking out new information, but also use your gut and your common sense. Test things. Experiment. Track results.

Do that, and you will find your own personal amalgamation of outside instruction and personal innovation, and create things that are solidly and authentically yours.

How well do you know yourself as a writer – your process, your voice, your writing techniques? What can you do to find out more?

Cathy Yardley is the author of eighteen novels, published with houses such as St. Martin's and Avon, as well as her self-published Rock Your Writing series. She's also a developmental editor and writing coach, helping authors complete, revise, and get their stories published. Sign up here for her newsletter to receive the free course Jumpstart Your Writing Career.

Every writer is different, every novel is different, every path branches in its own directions. The only constant in writing is change. Every new novel is a reinvention of the wheel.

However, that’s my point. Stories roll because underneath they all are founded on the principle of the wheel, which in story terms is conflict: inner, outer, mighty, minute, moral, you name it. You can’t get away from it. It’s the gasoline, pistons, spark plugs and drive shaft that allows the vehicle to carry your passengers, the characters, to somewhere new.

So there you go. There is after all one underlying absolute and I know what it is. Accept it. Embrace what I’m saying. It’s my way or the highway….or, wait, hold on, I disagree with myself!

Huh. I am a self-contrarian. I guess that means that I am conflicted. No wonder I like writing. It lets me be myself. Just as you say.

I suppose what I was utterly ignorant about at the onset was that this is the point of the whole shebang – coming to know myself. I’m still grappling with what the underlying themes really mean. In fact, sometimes it feels like my soul (or subconscious self, or inner spirit, or however anyone would like to think of it – be that spiritual or scientific) is teasing me. Like, “Come on, reach for it, meat-puppet – almost there. Ooo, you almost got it that time. Good effort, though. Keep reaching.”

The one thing that is binary about writing success is: persevere versus quit. One is necessary, and the other guarantees failure. And you were there for me at several of my selection junctures on this one, Cathy. You were the first person that made me feel like I actually had a chance at this gig. And several times after that, you were there to give me a nudge at just the right time.

I know myself well enough now to realize that I owe you a great debt of gratitude. Thank you (let’s call that the first installment on a penny payment plan). Great post today, Coach.

Thanks, Vaughn. I have you to thank, too. You trusted me early in my editing career, and it’s been a joy to watch you turn into a leader in the writing community, as well as move forward in your own writing journey. You’re a great student, and an even better friend. Thanks for commenting!

In fact, it’s one guideline that *can* teach nuance. Whenever I wonder if a line needs more or less detail, I ask myself, “is this the way that I can see myself writing *everything* like this?” So much of style can be just being consistent… with how we want to be telling all our other stories (at least those in the same style), and what’s important to us.

Interesting question! I’m so wedded to my voice, I can’t change it without a lot of conscious effort ( if I’m ghostwriting, or deliberately emulating, for example.) It took a long time and lots of misfires to figure that out, though… I’d try to write “serious”, and the humor just bleeds through no matter what.

Cathy, you made me laugh with your contrarian remark. I relate completely :) Your advice is spot on. For years I tried to write first thing in the morning because that’s what all the good writers did, but I realized I was fighting myself. I like getting all my morning chores done before writing so afternoons and night-time (after evening chores) are the best writing times for me.

That said, I’ve been experimenting with writing again in the morning. My husband gets up very early so we pray together before he leaves for work and then I write in bed. But within 30 min my mind goes to the morning chores. Still I’ve been enjoying those 30 min with all the pets around me.

Yes, yes, yes! I’ll have what she’s having. All great advice. I’ve been told to vomit it out. I’ve tried. Can’t do it. I’ve been told to stop editing as I go. I’ve tried. Can’t do it. I’ve been told to write every day. I”ve tried. Can’t do it. And the list goes on. I feel 100% validated by your wonderful post, Cathy. I believe that accepting your process is half the battle of becoming a “real” writer.

Bravo! A writer after my own heart. Writers have had enough of the “my way or the highway” publishers and editors and “rule makers.” It’s why many of us have gone to self publishing. We’ll get our work in the laps of readers despite a failing industry. If you need any help shoving this message down a few editors and publishers throats, let me know. Bravo!

Ah, if I have to shove the message, then I’ve got the wrong audience — and telling someone their way is wrong isn’t the point, then, is it? :)

There are a lot of people who believe that life is a series of certain and specific do-and-don’ts. I’m more of the pull mentality. I figure, if I’m myself out loud, the people who need to hear it will find me, and the people who resonate with the message will share it. (As you’ve volunteered to do! )

Sometimes, I find, just being unapologetically yourself is the best form of resistance… and the best agent for change.

Yeah. Not sure that works so well. I mean look at the ailing Democratic party. Being unapologetically ourselves lost us the election. Didn’t work so well for us. Sometimes you got to protest and get in somebody’s face. Mainstream publishing will hold tight to these rigid rules unless we remind them again and again, things have to change. When Amazon outsells every big shot publisher on mahogany row, it’s time for change. Just being yourself won’t cut it. Sorry.

Cathy, this is a stunning post that will resonate with most. Me included. It makes me wonder how well I really know myself, my goals, my challenges. And why it’s important I look deeper. This is a crazy life we live. And as the great Michael Jackson once said, “I’m starting with the man in the mirror.” Thought provoking post.

Cathy, terrific advice for those at all levels, but especially those, like me, who are newer to writing. My process has always been to read everything until I start reading the same thing and then I stop and sift through what resonates with me. Somehow it all becomes a part of me and what doesn’t stick falls away. Learning is iterative. Thanks for validating that there’s never room for absolutes.

This is fantastic advice. It’s amazing to me how many writers seem to think of their own minds as mysterious black boxes. They’re terrified that if they open the lid and peek inside, they’ll accidentally break themselves.

“If I rewrite, my ‘left brain’ will take over and ruin my natural voice.”

“If I edit while I write, I’ll end up revising endlessly. Even if something is wrong, I have to keep going and never look back.”

“If I try outlining, my stories will be inorganic and my characters will be unrealistic. All these experts on the Internet say so.”

Who controls your voice? You do! Who controls your behavior? You do! No, you will not somehow damage your delicate talent by trying a new process. An outline is a tool for brainstorming and organizing ideas, not an alien slug creature that will crawl through your ear and take over your mind.

If you evaluate about how you do things, and you pluck up the courage to different ways of doing them, I guarantee you won’t break yourself. At the very worst, you’ll confirm that new approaches don’t work, and the way you were doing things all along was best after all.

Cathy–As is your way, you’ve given us sage advice, made more useful by being offered up in terse, clear prose. Thank you.

Along with all the other hats you wear, you’re a professional gun-for-hire editor. As such, you are confronted with the concerns you speak of in your post–but with a twist: you are being paid to make use of your twenty years of experience in the form of judgments and guidance that writers pay you to apply to their writing. This represents a great responsibility.

As you rightly say, an absolutist approach to the rules of the writing road can block off creative possibilities–and the same holds true in other ways for the editorial function. It requires a special kind of tact. For me, this takes the form of less-is-more. I’ve worked with six editors, and the ones who served me best believed what you believe: give a narrative enough breathing space to prove itself, without imposing some pre-established absolutes. But in my experience, the very best editors not only remain open to a narrative, but also choose their moments for advice or criticism with care. Something might be said about almost every sentence or graph in a manuscript. But too much commentary, too much intrusion (in my experience) can lead to only two reactions. One, the writer becomes addled by so much observation/criticism that s/he can’t know what matters most in the comments. Or, the writer rebels, and comes to think the editor is “showing off” rather than picking the key moments for commentary. My point is, sometimes, in an effort to do a thorough job, an editor can thwart the process of improving a narrative. Not by an absolutist attitude toward writing, but by an overly zealous approach to advice. Does this make sense, or not? .

I will say, being an editor is tougher than I’d imagined. I try to preface things with “this is my opinion, go with your gut”, as I do with all my coaching sessions, but many writers — especially newer ones — don’t want opinions, they want facts, and they want fixes. As you point out, editors need to be judicious. It’s important to call out problems, but at the same time, be wary of wielding a sledgehammer when a simple chisel would work.

That said, recognizing your own voice means knowing enough about yourself to see if you really need the advice being given, or not. If you follow too slavishly, you might kill your own voice; if you’re too stubborn to recognize flaws, you’ll sabotage yourself. For example, every time — every SINGLE time — I get copy edits, I want to punch someone in the throat. (And I have had lovely copy editors!) But once I settle down and get ego out of the way, I am able to be open to their very helpful, and usually correct, comments. I still stet things, but I’m in a better frame of mind to process the input. Took me about ten years to figure that out, though.

I agree… to a point. Certainly Socrates would say “know thyself,” but he said that in context of metaphysics:

Know thyself… in proportion to knowing ultimate reality. That was the whole point of The Matrix

So I’d probably say, “Study yourself and your place in the universe as you study others.” Or something like, “Stand as tall as you can stand and no taller.” Or even, “You’re better than nobody and nobody’s better than you.”

They all get at the same principle.

I am not infinite.

But I am unique because I do connect to all things and persons in the way that only I can. For the other metaphysicians here, I’m thinking of Aristotle’s notion of accidents.

You’re a wise man. (I first typed “you’re a wise guy”, but I think that means something different now!) I think you’re self-aware and still a brilliant student of others, and you’re integrating accordingly. Thanks for adding to the conversation! :)

Cathy, thanks for the reminder to keep returning to core/personal insight.

The advice of writing teachers strikes me like what diet-gurus peddle. “This year we’ve learned that last year’s ideas about (fill in the blank) were nonsense.”

Whether self-generated or absorbed from writing ‘professionals’, the My Way of the Highway approach overlooks that highways become obsolete and/or need repair; and over time readers demand new highways and occasionally thrill to drive off-road.

It’s like jazz–the music keeps evolving, so the rules fail. Still is has to hit the bullseye of the human heart, which runs on some mysterious genetics that look like rules, but aren’t. Oh, the fun!!

Cathy, how freeing and how true. No one can sit on your shoulder and make you a writer, no matter how many books you read and rules you discover that you think should apply to your process. The freedom to create IS writing. It comes from your heart and your soul. Restrictions can only hold your back so that what goes onto the page is forced. It’s not you. Thanks.

Lately I found myself searching the library for a book on writing that would tell me…what? I had no idea, but I desperately searched. I think it was my way of avoiding the moment of sitting down and doing the work. I wanted a book along the lines of “How to Rewrite a Novel if You’re a Pantser and Have Limited Time and Waste it Blogging.”

I start my writing sessions by reading a page from another author’s work, to get the rhythm of language in my brain, and to inspire me to spill my own words onto a blank page. Then I do a five minute free-write, like pianists practice scales before playing a sonata. If I don’t do those two things, my editor sits heavily on my hand.

Natalie Goldberg’s writing tips serve me well: to keep the hand moving, and no stopping to make corrections. I also use tips from “Finding Your Writer’s Voice” by Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall, my all-time favorite book on writing.

When it comes to rewriting, I’ve read tons of books, attended classes and conferences, watched webinars, and discovered what works best for me is to tap into raw voice again, and redraft the whole shebang,

I’ll continue gobbling up every writing book I can get my hands on because I never feel like I’ve arrived when it comes to mastering my craft.

It was such relief to read this article. I thought I was the only writer out here who felt this way. When I was writing my first novel, I kept trying to follow all the MANY rules and guidelines as they popped into my inbox, until I realized they were starting to contradict each other. It was like trying to find good weight loss advice. I finally decided to thumb my nose at them and do what worked for ME. It was so freeing, and my writing time became a joy again. I’ve applied this same idea to my marketing strategies.

I’m trying to think of a great “ly” word to express the awesomeness of this article. How did you get so much good stuff in there, and it’s so easy to understand. So many times I start to read articles on writing and one paragraph in I’m all what are they saying? What’s going on ? Where am I? Is this even English? Cathy, you are bombtasticly bombtastic. There.

I really love this post! My favorite line: “We are encouraged to write three-dimensional nuanced characters. Why would we expect less than nuanced and three-dimensional challenges when it comes to how we write, and what we write? We’re simply characters in our own lives, after all.” Thank you.

I have got to the point in reading writing posts online where i hesitate to read just in case they’re the simplistic, overly authoritative, one-size-for-all 7 Ways to Blah Blah. Those posts, in their quest to appeal to everyone and be evergreen and clickable are often battshittingly boring.

I like reading posts that are specific to a particular person so it’s like looking in their window. Even if their process is nothing like mine, I find I learn more from the comparison than from generalisations.

‘If writers are confused and in pain, the last thing they want to read is a treatise that says “well, it depends” over and over.’ Well, it depends :) Does the treatise go round and round, examining from lots of different angles so that it is paradoxical and even contradictory but starts suggesting a sort of shape? That’s the advice I would read over and over, that gives me an empty box and inspires my imaginatiom. I think these posts are very hard to write.

Good job. When I see the one-size-fits all blog posts and articles that are clearly espousing only the author’s opinion or experience, I shake my head. Then again, I also know some or even many of them are following advice *they’ve* heard about effective blog posts. Meanwhile, I stick with what I know. And I know each writer is different.

Still, I’ve been affected by all those posts that claim the only way to write well is to get up early to write. I think “How quaint, how Victorian, how American to think working at the crack of dawn somehow makes us more effective. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man….or however ol’ Ben put it.” But it still made me wonder if I should try it.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been writing since I was a teenager, and I majored in English in college. So I know my best essays have been written in the wee hours, long nights by myself when everyone’s asleep and the world is quiet. And I go to bed when others are awakening bright and early. Job done.

I admit I could never get into journaling, though. I’ve tried. But there I part ways with your advice. I just dig into a rough draft, whether fiction or non-fiction or poetry when ideas pop into my mind. I have loads of ’em. Could easily fill 10 journals :)

Nuance is the expression of subtle differences in expression, responses, beliefs. It doesn’t have to be taught because it is who and what human beings are. But it often needs to be discussed, even among writers who are in touch with who they are. Because there is no end point to subtlety.

Rather than handing out absolutes to beginning writers, such as, “Don’t use adverbs” (your example), then hoping that along the way these writers will “learn” to write with nuance, wouldn’t it be better to start with discussions of how nuance is at the core of every writer’s voice and experience, that it is what makes each writer’s voice unique, and then provide relevant exercises to deepen that understanding?

I agree with you that there are as many ways to approach writing as there are writers. But, generally speaking, the reason so many writers still feel inadequate in spite of having read a million craft books is because those craft books rarely help a writer stay true to their vision. They also don’t help writers to think independently or deeply. Which is why nuance is not something you’ll find in most craft books or in beginning writing classes. Read a book like The Practice of Poetry—a craft book for poets–and every exercises is about sensitizing the poet’s antenna to the recognition and understanding of nuance.

Ask most writers what inspired them to begin whatever they’re working on and it invariably turns out that the end product is a far cry from what they started out wanting to explore. Because instead of going more deeply into why this particular idea or topic inspired them, they generally find it has to fit into the parameters of someone else’s idea of “ideal” or “proper” structure and use of language.

Don Maass’s books are, for the most part, the rare exception in an overcrowded marketplace of books for writers, many of which don’t actually help writers to make language their own.

The goal of writing is to transform the mundane into the unfamiliar. (I think it was Isaac Bashevis Singer who said this.) That becomes an impossible task if nuance is absent in the writer’s understanding from the beginning; because every time they approach their work it will be with a mundane mind.

Shelley–In my view, nuance is something of a synonym for “telling detail.” The only way for a writer to make details more memorable is to learn how to read books written by writers whose work abounds in unique particulars. I don’t mean just reading such books, but training oneself to use them as ultimate craft books.

Steven King said in an interview in The Atlantic, “”An intriguing context is important, and so is style. But for me, a good opening sentence really begins with voice. You hear people talk about “voice” a lot, when I think they really just mean “style.” Voice is more than that. People come to books looking for something. But they don’t come for the story, or even for the characters. They certainly don’t come for the genre. I think readers come for the voice.”

Everyone’s voice is unique, which is “telling detail” in its best form, when one knows how to access it. Voice is nuance. It is nothing less than the content of a writer’s heart and mind and soul. What can be more detailed than being human? What can be more nuanced?

Cathy, you’re awesome. Its so easy to feel like a square peg in a round hole in the writers world. I often think I’m at the bottom of the chain intellectually, especially when people start talking metaphysics, nuance and using words like binary. ( I seriously had to look that word up, even though I had an idea what it was through your context). But I’m 51, and I try not to get mired in a comparison/inadequacy game anymore. I think that is what’s key to finding “yourself.” It’s getting older, and losing that annoyingly insecure, clueless voice.